Tell Congress to #Sunset702

The NSA's admitted, massive, unconstitutional violations of Americans' privacy under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act must end. #Sunset702

The FBI shouldn't be allowed to root through NSA surveillance data looking for evidence of minor crimes. #Sunset702 #CloseTheBackdoor

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We're up against some of the most powerful corporate lobbyists in the country, but that hasn't stopped us before. If a critical mass of citizens speak out against CISA, our voices will be impossible to ignore.

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The US Government has turned the Internet into something it was never intended to be: a system for spying on us in our most private moments. By tapping Internet cables, undermining security standards, and getting our data from companies in secret, the National Security Agency has built the largest surveillance apparatus in history and is collecting information on most Internet users.

Ad agencies mine info on our individual vulnerabilities to coerce consumer and political decisions, without our knowledge. Companies leak out our financial information, violate their own privacy agreements and still are offered immunity for sharing our customer data with the NSA. The government and police use counterterrorism resources to spy on our peaceful political protests. People get longer jail time depending on the zip code they live in, even for the same offense. And just imagine what else is happening without our knowledge.

The Internet is integrated into every part of our lives—what we allow to happen with our data will shape the future of our society. We're now on the brink of making big decisions about the kinds of power governments and monopolies have to use this data against our own interests. And, they're moving fast—the US, Britain, France, Singapore, Iran, China, and more, are all moving to pass expansive surveillance laws and sweetening deals for cooperating tech companies (like with full corporate immunity from our laws). We have to draw the line in the sand now.

Companies are rated based on their roles in supporting or opposing legislative
policies addressing warrantless surveillance of Internet communications and data
insecurity. Companies that support the position that would limit surveillance
and data insecurity on allthree bills are included on “Team Internet.” Companies
that support the position that furthers surveillance and data insecurity on an
of the bills are on “Team NSA.” Sources and raw data are here.

Because positions can change, the most recent statement from a company (or a
trade group representing them) is used to determine their position. Statements
can take the form of any legitimate company communication or action—blog posts,
letters to Congress, tweets, trade statements, or anything else. Trade
associations and coalitions are assumed to speak for all of their member
organizations. Statements from employees and CEOs, unless specifically stated as
the company, will not be considered for this because they do not necessarily
reflect the corporate position.

Companies that have made their own statement on CISA, separate from their trade
groups, are listed higher up in rankings and recognized with a special star
next to their name. Companies that have no known position are considered
“silent” and categorized with Team NSA.

This scorecard looks at the top tech, software, Internet, and telecom companies
by valuation, revenue, and Internet ranking. It also includes other companies
that have made efforts to have stances on these three policies.

Project History and Cosponsors

The scorecard is objective, rather than qualitative. That is, scores are based
on actual votes and legislative action such as co-sponsorships rather
than the quality or trustworthiness of legislators' public action or
statements on mass
surveillance.

We set the grade boundaries unevenly, because the legislators are
themselves distributed unevenly. The buckets are generally narrower in
the middle of the distribution than at either end.

Methodological Issues in Allocating Points

Two notable difficulties that arose when formulating the scorecard
were how to interpret votes on the USA FREEDOM Act, and how to score
amendments.

USA FREEDOM 2015 votes were not a clear signal of being for or
against surveillance reform. The USA FREEDOM Act changed the process of surveillance by separating surveillance procedures but many organizations and legislators warned that it preserves and modernizes the same surveillance authorities, while enabling Congress to say it tackled surveillance reform. Therefore, Yes votes are graded at -1. However, because of the nature of the bill, a No vote could mean 1. that the legislator thought the USA FREEDOM Act didn't go nearly far enough or 2. that even very weak reforms are unacceptable there shouldn't be any restrictions of surveillance authorities. Therefore No votes in the Senate were tied to the legislator’s vote on whether to do "straight reauthorization" of Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act. A Yes on straight reauthorization indicated clearly that they wanted no surveillance reform whatsoever, and therefore that if they then voted No on the USA FREEDOM Act, it
was because they believed it went too far. Conversely, a Senator
voting No on straight reauthorization and then No on the USA FREEDOM
Act likely felt that the USA FREEDOM Act was far too weak. For the
former group, we coded a No vote on USA FREEDOM as -4 points; for the
latter group, we coded the same vote as +4 points. In the House, we
went back to EFF's "Stand Against Spying" scorecard and analyzed the
grades of the 88 House members voting against the USA FREEDOM Act, and
found that in almost all cases their grades on that prior scorecard
were very high. Consequently, all House No votes on USA FREEDOM were coded as +4. For prior votes on the 2014 version of USA FREEDOM, we adopted EFF's approach, and scored the version before it was gutted at +2 and the version after it was gutted at -2.

Scoring amendments to CISA posed complexities. CISA
went beyond cybersecurity policies and is a surveillance bill. Many amendments were offered, and that raised the problem that legislators might vote for CISA on cloture (-4) and on final passage (-4), but might vote in favor of all
anti-surveillance amendments, and thereby come out ahead on net. We
dealt with this by not scoring the Leahy amendment (relating to FOIA
exemptions) and by allocating points such that a legislator like this
would come out slightly behind on points.

Reporting Accurately on Surveillance Reform

This project threw up several important findings relevant to journalists
reporting on surveillance, and to members of the public deciding how to vote and
whom to fund.

First, and most importantly, party affiliation is not a guide to your
legislator's stance on mass surveillance. We find a few Democrats with Fs and
many Republicans with A+. So while not entirely useless, party affiliation is
highly unreliable, and journalists should steer clear of identifying a
party-based stance on surveillance in their reporting.

Second, reporters should not treat the reforms in the USA FREEDOM Act as being
the most radical reform measures in Congress. The scorecard includes many
examples of stronger reforms that have garnered substantial support. As we move
forward into discussions of reforms to the much more abusive Section 702 of the
FISA Amendments Act, which sunsets in June 2017, it will be worth bearing in
mind the substantial, bipartisan set of legislators who never intended reform
efforts to stop with the passage of the USA FREEDOM Act.

Third, the data does provide some guidance as to who in Congress is more likely
to support reform. There is also usually substantial variation within states
that argues against easy conclusions. In key 2016 races around the country, the
candidates running from both parties have sharply different positions on
surveillance, and we have no reason to suppose that this will change in future
cycles.

Our Scoring System

This project originated in a desire to update EFF's
"Stand Against
Spying" scorecard covering legislative activity in the
113th Congress (2013-14), to take into account votes taken in
the legislative battle over Section 215 renewal and the USA
FREEDOM Act, which provided limited reforms of Section 215. It
is a joint project of Restore The Fourth and Fight for the
Future, with the key participants being Alex Marthews and Zaki
Manian of Restore The Fourth and Tiffiniy Cheng and Jeff Lyon of
Fight for the Future.

We decided early on that, like with "Stand Against Spying", the
scorecard should be objective: That is, it should not contain
value judgments about the quality or trustworthiness of
legislators' public statements on mass surveillance, or about
how the legislator was generally perceived to stand on that
issue, but should consider only the votes they actually took,
and decisions to sponsor or cosponsor legislation introduced in
Congress. This important limitation means that, for example,
House Majority Leader John Boehner, who has a general practice
of not voting on bills unless he has to to break a tie, does not
have a score in our scorecard and is therefore graded at "?",
despite voluminous press reports suggesting that he is generally
opposed to surveillance reform; and that Curtis Clawson (R-FL)
and Ruben Hinojosa (D-FL), whose voting records are too sparse
on this topic to enable a clear judgement to be made, are also
graded at ?.

The major challenge for a surveillance scorecard is interpreting
votes on the USA FREEDOM Act of 2015. Being against this Act was
not a clear signal of being for or against surveillance reform.
For many organizations, including ours, and for many legislators
as well, the USA FREEDOM Act was far too weak and limited to
represent any kind of surveillance reform, and also modernized
certain powers of the surveillance state. Its passage even posed
a risk of derailing real surveillance reform by enabling
legislators to make the political claim that it had dealt with
the problem of mass surveillance. A Yes vote on the USA FREEDOM
Act could therefore potentially mean that the legislator thought
that it was a good, if incremental, step towards reform; but it
could also, as it turned it for some legislators, be thought of
as the most feasible way to preserve surveillance authorities
against the threat of the outright expiration of Section 215. A
No vote could mean that the legislator thought the USA FREEDOM
Act didn't go nearly far enough; but it could also mean that the
legislator could not accept even its very weak reforms, and felt
that Congress should not restrict surveillance authorities at
all.

In consequence, we needed some objective indicator of a
legislator's underlying desire for surveillance reform, in order
to assign points correctly to their votes on the USA FREEDOM
Act. For the Senate, we found an indicator, in the form of the
Senate's vote on whether to do "straight reauthorization" of
Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act. If a Senator voted Yes on
straight reauthorization, that was a much clearer indicator that
they wanted no surveillance reform whatsoever, and therefore
that if they then voted No on the USA FREEDOM Act, it was
because they believed it went too far. Conversely, a Senator
voting No on straight reauthorization and then No on the USA
FREEDOM Act likely felt that the USA FREEDOM Act was far too
weak. For the former group, we coded a No vote on USA FREEDOM as
-4 points; for the latter group, we coded the same vote as +4
points. In the House, we went back to EFF's "Stand Against
Spying" scorecard and analyzed the grades of the 88 House
members voting against the USA FREEDOM Act, and found that in
almost all cases their grades on that prior scorecard were very
high. Consequently, we felt comfortable coding all House No
votes on USA FREEDOM as +4. After much discussion, we felt that
most legislators voting Yes on USA FREEDOM in either chamber
probably voted Yes because they felt it was a positive step
towards reform, so we coded such votes as +1.

For the prior votes on the 2014 version of USA FREEDOM, we
adopted EFF's approach, and scored the version before it was
gutted at +2 and the version after it was gutted at -2.

The rest of the coding was relatively straightforward. Voting for
or cosponsoring measures that advanced surveillance reform
gained points for the legislator; voting against such measures,
or cosponsoring anti-reform measures, lost points for the
legislator. The number of points gained or lost represents our
collective value judgement as to how much the measure, if
passed, would advance the overall project of surveillance
reform. For example, the wholesale repeal of the surveillance
state represented by the Surveillance State Repeal Acts of 2014
and 2015 merit four points each; the FISA Reform Act of 2015,
briefly introduced as an attempt to provide a weaker substitute
for the USA FREEDOM Act, merits -3 points.

Summary of Points Allocation

As further relevant votes come up, such as those on CISA, we
will add them to our points system. At the beginning of the
116th Congress, we intend to remove the point allocations for
the 113th Congress, to keep the scorecard relevant to
legislators' recent activity.

This project threw up several important findings relevant to
journalists reporting on surveillance, and to members of the
public deciding how to vote and whom to fund.

First, and most importantly, party affiliation is not a guide to
your legislator's stance on mass surveillance. Unlike for almost
any other issue, both support for and opposition to surveillance
reform crosses party lines. Strongly liberal legislators usually
get A+ (as with Rep. Barbara Lee or Sen. Bernie Sanders) or As,
but Charlie Rangel gets only a B+, and there are two Democrats,
Jim Langevin of Rhode Island and Terri Sewell of Alabama, who
get Fs. While strongly conservative legislators do most often
get Ds and Fs, there are conservatives not closely identified in
public with the surveillance reform fight, like Louie Gohmert of
Texas and Jeff Duncan of South Carolina, who get A+. So while
not entirely useless, party affiliation is highly unreliable,
and journalists should steer clear of identifying a party-based
stance on surveillance in their reporting.

What does play a role?

Several tendencies seem apparent, but are not a given.
African-American legislators are systematically more likely to
support surveillance reform. Legislators with a military
background, or service on an intelligence committee, are
systematically less likely to support surveillance reform.
Legislators who identify with the Ron Paul movement, such as
Reps. Massie and Amash and (of course) Sen. Rand Paul, tend
strongly to support surveillance reform, and are a vocal and
passionate minority of Republican legislators. More recently
elected legislators of both parties tend to be more supportive
of surveillance reform, probably because they have run first for
their office during a period when the issue was especially
salient. Legislators in leadership, and particularly on the
Armed Services or Intelligence Committees, are more likely to
oppose surveillance reform. Southern legislators are generally
more opposed to surveillance reform - no Arkansas legislator
rates above a D, and if an F- had been available, Sen. Tom
Cotton (R-AR) would have been the only legislator with one.
Pacific Northwest, Upper Midwest and Northeastern legislators
are generally more favorable to surveillance reform - no Vermont
legislator rates below an A. However, considerable variation
within states is the norm, even in smaller states like Idaho and
Iowa.

We can see, therefore, that in key 2016 races around the country,
the candidates running from both parties have sharply different
positions on surveillance, and we have no reason to suppose that
this will change in future cycles.

Our Scoring System

This project originated in a desire to update EFF's
"Stand Against
Spying" scorecard covering legislative activity in the
113th Congress (2013-14), to take into account votes taken in
the legislative battle over Section 215 renewal and the USA
FREEDOM Act, which provided limited reforms of Section 215. It
is a joint project of Restore The Fourth and Fight for the
Future, with the key participants being Alex Marthews and Zaki
Manian of Restore The Fourth and Tiffiniy Cheng and Jeff Lyon of
Fight for the Future.

We decided early on that, like with "Stand Against Spying", the
scorecard should be objective: That is, it should not contain
value judgments about the quality or trustworthiness of
legislators' public statements on mass surveillance, or about
how the legislator was generally perceived to stand on that
issue, but should consider only the votes they actually took,
and decisions to sponsor or cosponsor legislation introduced in
Congress. This important limitation means that, for example,
House Majority Leader John Boehner, who has a general practice
of not voting on bills unless he has to to break a tie, does not
have a score in our scorecard and is therefore graded at "?",
despite voluminous press reports suggesting that he is generally
opposed to surveillance reform; and that Curtis Clawson (R-FL)
and Ruben Hinojosa (D-FL), whose voting records are too sparse
on this topic to enable a clear judgement to be made, are also
graded at ?.

The major challenge for a surveillance scorecard is interpreting
votes on the USA FREEDOM Act of 2015. Being against this Act was
not a clear signal of being for or against surveillance reform.
For many organizations, including ours, and for many legislators
as well, the USA FREEDOM Act was far too weak and limited to
represent any kind of surveillance reform, and also modernized
certain powers of the surveillance state. Its passage even posed
a risk of derailing real surveillance reform by enabling
legislators to make the political claim that it had dealt with
the problem of mass surveillance. A Yes vote on the USA FREEDOM
Act could therefore potentially mean that the legislator thought
that it was a good, if incremental, step towards reform; but it
could also, as it turned it for some legislators, be thought of
as the most feasible way to preserve surveillance authorities
against the threat of the outright expiration of Section 215. A
No vote could mean that the legislator thought the USA FREEDOM
Act didn't go nearly far enough; but it could also mean that the
legislator could not accept even its very weak reforms, and felt
that Congress should not restrict surveillance authorities at
all.

In consequence, we needed some objective indicator of a
legislator's underlying desire for surveillance reform, in order
to assign points correctly to their votes on the USA FREEDOM
Act. For the Senate, we found an indicator, in the form of the
Senate's vote on whether to do "straight reauthorization" of
Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act. If a Senator voted Yes on
straight reauthorization, that was a much clearer indicator that
they wanted no surveillance reform whatsoever, and therefore
that if they then voted No on the USA FREEDOM Act, it was
because they believed it went too far. Conversely, a Senator
voting No on straight reauthorization and then No on the USA
FREEDOM Act likely felt that the USA FREEDOM Act was far too
weak. For the former group, we coded a No vote on USA FREEDOM as
-4 points; for the latter group, we coded the same vote as +4
points. In the House, we went back to EFF's "Stand Against
Spying" scorecard and analyzed the grades of the 88 House
members voting against the USA FREEDOM Act, and found that in
almost all cases their grades on that prior scorecard were very
high. Consequently, we felt comfortable coding all House No
votes on USA FREEDOM as +4. After much discussion, we felt that
most legislators voting Yes on USA FREEDOM in either chamber
probably voted Yes because they felt it was a positive step
towards reform, so we coded such votes as +1.

For the prior votes on the 2014 version of USA FREEDOM, we
adopted EFF's approach, and scored the version before it was
gutted at +2 and the version after it was gutted at -2.

The rest of the coding was relatively straightforward. Voting for
or cosponsoring measures that advanced surveillance reform
gained points for the legislator; voting against such measures,
or cosponsoring anti-reform measures, lost points for the
legislator. The number of points gained or lost represents our
collective value judgement as to how much the measure, if
passed, would advance the overall project of surveillance
reform. For example, the wholesale repeal of the surveillance
state represented by the Surveillance State Repeal Acts of 2014
and 2015 merit four points each; the FISA Reform Act of 2015,
briefly introduced as an attempt to provide a weaker substitute
for the USA FREEDOM Act, merits -3 points.

Summary of Points Allocation

As further relevant votes come up, such as those on CISA, we
will add them to our points system. At the beginning of the
116th Congress, we intend to remove the point allocations for
the 113th Congress, to keep the scorecard relevant to
legislators' recent activity.

This project threw up several important findings relevant to
journalists reporting on surveillance, and to members of the
public deciding how to vote and whom to fund.

First, and most importantly, party affiliation is not a guide to
your legislator's stance on mass surveillance. Unlike for almost
any other issue, both support for and opposition to surveillance
reform crosses party lines. Strongly liberal legislators usually
get A+ (as with Rep. Barbara Lee or Sen. Bernie Sanders) or As,
but Charlie Rangel gets only a B+, and there are two Democrats,
Jim Langevin of Rhode Island and Terri Sewell of Alabama, who
get Fs. While strongly conservative legislators do most often
get Ds and Fs, there are conservatives not closely identified in
public with the surveillance reform fight, like Louie Gohmert of
Texas and Jeff Duncan of South Carolina, who get A+. So while
not entirely useless, party affiliation is highly unreliable,
and journalists should steer clear of identifying a party-based
stance on surveillance in their reporting.

What does play a role?

Several tendencies seem apparent, but are not a given.
African-American legislators are systematically more likely to
support surveillance reform. Legislators with a military
background, or service on an intelligence committee, are
systematically less likely to support surveillance reform.
Legislators who identify with the Ron Paul movement, such as
Reps. Massie and Amash and (of course) Sen. Rand Paul, tend
strongly to support surveillance reform, and are a vocal and
passionate minority of Republican legislators. More recently
elected legislators of both parties tend to be more supportive
of surveillance reform, probably because they have run first for
their office during a period when the issue was especially
salient. Legislators in leadership, and particularly on the
Armed Services or Intelligence Committees, are more likely to
oppose surveillance reform. Southern legislators are generally
more opposed to surveillance reform - no Arkansas legislator
rates above a D, and if an F- had been available, Sen. Tom
Cotton (R-AR) would have been the only legislator with one.
Pacific Northwest, Upper Midwest and Northeastern legislators
are generally more favorable to surveillance reform - no Vermont
legislator rates below an A. However, considerable variation
within states is the norm, even in smaller states like Idaho and
Iowa.

We can see, therefore, that in key 2016 races around the country,
the candidates running from both parties have sharply different
positions on surveillance, and we have no reason to suppose that
this will change in future cycles.